Bonus experiments

As you may guess I took a break from the 100 Styles series this week as well, and I'll most probably take next week off as well. As a small bonus while you wait I've taken these past experiments and posted them for your enjoyment. Both utilize Smart Objects to a large extent, but I haven't considered them worthy of their own posts, but together they're interesting enough in my humble opinion. If you're interested in knowing more about how they were made, please post a comment and I'll tell you more.

Dissection of an image

Today I thought I'd dissect the above image (the header of my - hopefully - funny site http://www.alien-jobs.com/ ). Hopefully you'll find it interesting, and perhaps even learn a bit about Photoshop.

I don't remember the exact steps it took to arrive at this setup, but in any case, at the bottom there is a layer which looks like the above (it's actually two due to the process through which I ended up with this image, but it could be done with one layer). It might seem like a plain blue box, and that's the base, but at the edges there's a 1px stroke with a special gradient (you might have to look at the larger version to see it). You'll see later that it's made to fit the strokes around the menu bar while at the same time fitting with the tone of the rest of the header.

The city is in overlay mode to fit in with the background color while still letting both light and dark values affect the end result. If you're interesting in knowing how I did it please leave a comment, but in short it's a simple Blender scene + some very basic Photoshop created planets in the background.

Here the menu bar background is added. It's just a shape layer with a solid color and a Gradient Overlay layer style to add some simple depth.

Here's another subtle addition: two lines 2px wide, with a Gradient Overlay layer style that's adding the high-light in the center. The lines consist of two colors: one that's a brighter shade of the main color of the menu bar background, and the other is almost black. The almost black line is topmost on the top line and at the bottom of the bottom line. These small lines add some nice dimensionality, and now you can see where the gradient from the top image fits in the big picture.

And now for the finishing touches: the type. The website name + slogan is in the font Andika Basic (can be downloaded for free from http://scripts.sil.org/andika ). The slogan has a simple Drop Shadow layer style. And the website name has got a slightly more complicated layer style. Easiest to see is the huge Outer Glow in Linear Dodge blend mode, but there's also a slight Drop Shadow and a 1px Stroke which together adds some dimensionality to the text. If you want to take a closer look at the later layer style feel free to download it: http://feneur.com/fdad/Alien_Jobs_Blue.asl

To install it go to Edit-->Preset Manager, then choose Styles from the drop-down list. After that it's just to click the Load button to the right and navigate to where you downloaded the file and select it + click ok and you have installed the custom layer style and can check it out and use it in your own projects.

Experiment 110: Planet 2

Created in Photoshop CS3 Extended using a Wacom Intuos 3

Some experiments inspired by these tutorials: http://gallery.artofgregmartin.com/tuts_arts/making_a_star_field.html and http://gallery.artofgregmartin.com/tuts_arts/making_a_planet.html . As usual I want to add that this is not a finished piece but rather an experiment to learn stuff ;-) (Though, also as usual, that doesn't mean that I don't hope that you enjoy looking at it)

Experiment 99: Swirls

Created in Photoshop CS3 Extended using a Wacom Intuos 3

Playing around with a lot of different things, including actions and stroked paths, though in the opposite order :)

Experiment 97: Strange thoughts

Created in Photoshop CS3 Extended using a Wacom Intuos 3

Playing around a bit with stroked paths mostly.

Day 61: Night fowl

Created in The GIMP using a Wacom Intuos 3

Today there are two pictures, they're really the same, it's just that some things went wrong when I tried to save the above picture and before I figured out how to solve it I got the below result several times. The more I looked at the faulty version the more I liked it though, so I decided to show it too. (I've later realized that they are in a way each others opposites, the above is the bird in the sky, and the below looks a bit like the stars have fallen from the sky onto a planet.

Created in The GIMP, but since I didn't check the settings when saving it didn't turn out like it was supposed too. A proof that even great artists can make mistakes ;-) (I mean, if I can make mistakes, then I'm sure that great artists can too, maybe not as many, but still... All kidding aside I'm sure that the greater the artist the more mistakes, you gotta take chances to reach above the ordinary ;-) )

Day 60: Silent reflection

Created in openCanvas 4.5 using a Wacom Intuos 3

Not sure how silent this is, there's a lot of noise in this picture, but the again, if it's supposed to be abstract it can just as well be a bit strange too :)

Day 41: Looking up 4

Created in Inkscape 0.45 using a Wacom Intuos 3

See below for Swedish version of this text. Se nedan för svensk version av texten.

A variation on the theme I began three days ago, please read more about it here: Day 38: Looking up in case you haven't already, there you can also read about the little competition I'm having. And considering that the only guess I've received so far was "a shark with giant ears", something I can assure you I don't have in my apartment, don't hesitate to guess even if it might seem strange.

-\/\/_SWEDISH_\/\/-

En variation på temat jag började med för tre dagar sedan, läs gärna mer om det här: Day 38: Looking up om du inte redan har gjort det, där kan du också läsa om den lilla tävling som jag har för tillfället. Och apropå den är den enda gissning jag fått in än så länge "en haj med väldigt stora öron" och det har jag verkligen inte i min lägenhet, så gissa även om det kan verka dumt, vem vet du kanske gissar rätt.

Day seventeen: Inner glow

Created in openCanvas 4.5 using a Wacom Intuos 3

I'm not sure I've achieved the "inner glow" that the name talks of, but I like this picture in any case. It's not perfect, but I should know by now that I can't expect perfection from a quick little drawing/painting like this.